mockney piers

Indeed, I thought the customer service on RRoD was superb, you put in your serial number, print off the parcel force docket, they come round, pick it up. Within a week or two you have it back with new motherboard, and anything else fixed plus two year extension to the warranty, all gratis, plus free games etc if you're kept waiting too long (as happened to a couple of mates during the great silicon meltdown of 2006). All to the tune of a couple of hundred million absorbed by Microsoft. I know where you're coming from Jeremy. I believe Microsoft put up a warchest of something like 6 billion to get a decent market share in the console market with an eye to making future generations a full on home hub affair (everything from music and film downloads, through shopping to games, TV on demand etc) rather than a games machine. Loss-leading the consoles themselves are standard market practice pretty much from the word go. In fact clustering a bunch of 360s must be a very cheap way to get some real processing power on the cheap. I do believe the first Xboxs were even restricted export items as the processor was considered a weapons grade item. And when you think about it, 40 quid a month for some footie games on the tele, 3 quid a month suddenly looks a bargain, and the service, plus upgrades, patches etc, is nigh on faultless.

I once transferred a selection of disparate but thematically connected commercially available musical pieces from my vinyl based storage medium to a magnetic storage medium encased in a plastic cassette, in a forlorn bid to get noticed by a female who had the dubious honour of being the object of my unrequited love. I still look over my shoulder to this day lest the police swoop down on my for such grand larceny. sshhhhhh

Blimey, really?!?! Did they also warn people about investing all their savings in tulips?

I agree Keef, especially 40 odd quid a year. However having been a PC gamer for a long time, XBox live is far and away the most seamless, hassle free service, with the greatest uptime there is, and I can well believe, considering the sheer numbers and traffic, that the capital and running costs are positively behemothic!! (mind you it's microsoft, not like it hasn't got a pretty penny)

Seriously woof,let the thread sink, it will if you just let it. Noone should have been following up that last *Bob* post....seriously eeeuch!!!

I don't think there was any shooting down in flames going on, just some personal opinions about the whole malarkey. Disagreement is fine. For instance Cassius' initial point, I don't think anyone can really disagree with, but it has been made eleventy-one times already on this thread. The point about Max Clifford however, is fresh and I would opine, entirely valid. He's a vampire on society, sucking out the juices of good taste to his own ends. He feeds off the papers, who feed off him, and they both feed off us, and some of us feed some sort of schadenfreudal goodness from all the guff we read in those papers. Well, I say we....

Don't make him Ang Lee?

I know that certainly exists citizen. It doesn't really for me, although I admit to a pang of jealousy to other teams' successes, but that covers most teams from yo-yo status up. Some fans do irk, and inevitably it will be from the more successful teams, bad winners, bad losers, insufferable types, and they are legion. Hence why I love to see teams lose big matches, or drop points at Fulham. I think we do pretty well on this forum to be honest, and most people set out their stalls honestly and eloquently, even your cockney red types (says the spanish east londoner) ;)

*examines leaf*, gosh, how wonderful and articulate this side of it is! *doffs hat in BBW's direction*

I have to say I find the Irish cult of death a bit unsettling. It seems less prevalent among the younger generation, but the older generation have a weird obsession with it. A combination of old victorian values and catholic sensibilities, I guess, that makes for something I find quite unsettling. Those weird 'thoughtful' moments on the telly coupled with those death knells, and the death hour on the radio as the radio presenter cheerfully (yet respectfully) lists of this week's dead like the saturday evening football results. It's not wrong, it's just, well, different, and as an outsider I've never really got my head round it. Is the 'outpouring' (well, hardly) of grief for Jade a sign of our desire to embrace death more? I dunno, I think it's more to do with the cult of Hello and people's need to feel involved in public events. Hence the goulish tourism at Soham, the cringeworthy Dianan grief or Letchworth Garden City Corporation posting leaflets in september 2001 requesting people not to have private firework displays lest neighbours think they were under terrorist attack. All a bit tragic in a totally different meaning of the word.

*ahem* St Fighter *oh dear god kill me*. Mortal Kombat was almost...aaaaalmost...passable popcorn entertainment, which is about as good as any game=>film has gone. Super Mario Bros with Bob Hoskins anyone...eek,

"I just felt sorry for the kids thats all" You're right, it is a sad family tragedy, end of story.

Yes, mentioning an xbox on the JG thread, cut me down to size I can tell you!!

Interesting. I was enjoying the story, but the gameplay got very repetitive and I ran out of steam about 2/3 of the way through. I hope they make a good stab at it, there isn't a particularly good track record in turning games into films now is there :-/

Better expressed than I Lizzy, but I fully concur. Her kids were sorted anyway, she has millions already. Public attention became an addiction, perhaps the only way she could validate herself, through the lens of the 'public' or as you say, media circus, death gave her no reason to look inward, just another excuse to get herself in the papers. No publicity is bad publicity is it. She became a poster child for pretty much everything that's wrong with this country, ignorance, stupidity, crassness, bullying, racism, incivility, indeed she represented almost a celebration of those things in a way that, sadly seems to utterly lack irony. I won't miss her one iota. Have a heart you say; we've all had to cope with personal tragedies, it's something that happens every day, quietly and with dignity, a facet entirely missing from this whole affair. If I read of someone killed on the roads, I briefly feel empathy for those involved, having seen friends go the same way, but I don't know them from Adam, and would not come on a forum to express my condolences, what's the point, smacks of Goodyesque solipsism if you ask me; now the irony. Meanwhile we drop bombs on the innocent, daily without so much as cause for comment anymore. Sorry, my heart's all bled out on this one.

Headline: Mother of two dies of cancer. Sad private tragedy, but it ain't news. Her utter irrelevance and inanity, juxtaposed by the curious public obsession with it, irked me in life. It does no less so in death. I mean, the prime minister felt the need to say something; haven't you got an economy you fucked up to sort out or something?

yeah, bummer that, trail a wire if you can as it's pricey

Yeah, my jaw dropped when I read that, the fact he was echoing my thoughts is immaterial, i crack open a cold one in salutation!!

Escapist review: "It's a fucking masterpiece"

Pretty much every xbox owner i know has had a RRoD, but only one more than once. Mine must be getting on for 4 years old now, still working fine, not bad for any piece of complex consumer electronics frankly. Yeah it's noisy, but it's not terrible if you're playing a game with your surround sound on, but it's pretty useless as a dvd player. Elite is supposed to be quieter. I've been a happy 360 owner (or should that be pwner?)

What an exciting finish, great drama reminiscent of the England's world cup final. My first time at a 6 nations game, those tickets ain't cheap, but worth it, great experience, and pretty entertaining game too (though not as exciting as the following one)

I've a very early model non elite. Had one RRoD, but it's been absolutely fine since. The main reason for the elite would have to be the improved noise, reminds me of concorde at times ;) Surely most issues would be more or less ironed out in new models non?

an old mate of mine came over, and we think we may have seen the face of god, if not His true embodiment, beer can do that to you you know...and this is what we found

I'll be among scotch types in Twickenham, hurrah.

That's what makes that pub so great, they'll be rubbing shoulders with students, hip young thirty somethings (well, keef) builders, commuters having one before getting home. Proper community pub, at least it was before it got flock wallpaper.